When You Go Out: Don’t Forget It’s Tick Season

Getting out into nature may be a lot of fun in the summer months, but it’s also the season for ticks. Ticks can carry Lyme disease and other pathogens that may make people and animals sick. Some extra precautions may go a long way toward reducing our risk of tick-borne illness. Here are some tips on how to prevent our risk of getting bit by one of these potentially dangerous insects this summer.

Ticks Put Us At Risk of Disease

In addition to the unpleasant thought of an insect burying its head under our skin, ticks are known to carry Lyme disease. According to a CDC press release, approximately 300,000 people in the US are diagnosed with Lyme disease each year. And that’s not to mention other tick-borne diseases, some of which include: 

• Anaplasmosis
• Babesiosis
• Colorado tick fever
• Powassan disease
• Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever

Ticks aren’t all over the place all the time, but they really can be found just about anywhere, including colder climates where they weren’t previously seen.

Some ticks transmit diseases more easily than others, but it’s better to reduce exposure to all kinds of ticks and avoid their bites altogether to be safe. Protecting ourselves from ticks, in general, is often easier than trying to determine what type of tick is nearby or crawling on us or our pets. 

Products May Reduce the Risk of Tick Bites

Reducing the risk of tick bites may be handled in a couple of ways. One of the main options for protection is using products specifically made to repel ticks. These products may be purchased over the counter or online and don’t require special handling. 

Treating our clothing with a compound called permethrin, or buying clothing pretreated with it, may help reduce the chances of being bitten by ticks. This compound, and other chemicals used to repel ticks, may keep them off of our clothing and skin, reducing our risk of tick-borne illnesses. 

But our best protection comes from proper clothing choices.

Clothing Choices Can Make a Difference

When deciding what to wear outdoors during tick season, permethrin-treated clothing isn’t our only consideration. There are also simple, at-home things we can do to lower the tick-bite risk.

One of the easiest things we can do is tuck our pants into our socks when venturing out on walks or hikes where there’s grass, shrubs, trees, and shady areas. We may also want to wear long-sleeved shirts to reduce how much skin is exposed. Tuck shirts into pants also and avoid open collars that can let the critters fall down and onto your back inside the shirt.

It’s also a good idea to give some thought to clothing colors. Wearing light-colored clothing may help us identify ticks more quickly and easily. But research has found that ticks are more drawn to light colors, so darker clothing may lower the overall risk of ticks finding their way onto us. 

Keep hair tied up and wear a hat to help prevent its ability to drop down into your hair or to be brushed off into your hair.

Check Yourself for Ticks Frequently

Even when taking all the necessary precautions, it’s still important to check ourselves for ticks frequently. It generally takes 24 to 48 hours for a feeding tick to transmit Lyme disease, but other diseases may transfer faster. Time is a factor, so again, frequent tick checks are really important.

Make sure to check everywhere, including the neck, back, scalp and hairline. If we find ticks, we should remove them with sharp tweezers by grasping it as close to the skin as possible and pulling slowly. Don't try to pull it our fast or with twisting. 

Place clothing in a hot dryer for 10 to 20 minutes after being outdoors to help kill any hidden ticks, and it’s a good idea to shower and perform a tick check at that time. 

Don’t forget to check pets, too! Not only are they at risk for Lyme disease themselves, but they can carry ticks to humans, too. 

We may not see ticks as very pleasant creatures, but they have their place in the environment, just like everything else. But taking a few small precautions may go a long way toward peacefully reducing health risks and coexisting with ticks in their natural habitat.

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